Concern around Artificial Intelligence has only gone up in the United States, with a recent Pew Research study showing 52% of Americans say they are “More concerned than excited” about the increased use of AI. What are Americans so scared of? Are Americans unique in their concern or do other countries show similar sentiment? What can you do if you are worried about AI having a negative effect on your life?

What Really Concerns Us?

You would think by the headline news stories most Americans would be concerned with rogue AI Agents breaking through their digital walls and hacking the government’s computers. Or maybe we should be worried about the break-dancing robots that are kicking our children in the guts? According to data from the Stanford 2026 AI Index Report, a whopping 71% of US Adults believe that the rapid pace of adoption of AI technologies will make their personal data drastically less secure. In order for us to understand why that is, we have to get into the numbers.

There is a clear winner in the main concern of widespread AI use, Data Privacy. America has a reputation as the Wild West of Data Privacy, due to a lack of federal law that governs your right to privacy. In that same Stanford study the United States scored the lowest in the category of Trust in government regulation of AI with a score of 31%. While individual states like California have the CCPA and we have industry-specific laws like HIPAA for health care. There is no industry-specific law that regulates social media platforms, but we do have a few specific carve outs to protect Children, with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Other countries do not have the same mistrust of the system because there are regulations in place, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which protect all data collection everywhere with policies such as “Right to Erasure” and the right to object to your likeness being commercialized without consent. China has the most optimism around AI adoption because their government heavily regulates Technology companies and will issue massive billion dollar fines or in some cases outright shut the company down for violations of consumer privacy. However, they also have powerful government exemptions in place which allow the government to use these same tools however they see fit. The people accept the tradeoff, that they will be protected from bad businesses violating their privacy and they must trust that the State surveillance will not be used for malicious intent.

How Bad Is It Really?

Now that we’ve established why Americans are feeling anxious and what the cause most likely is, are they justified or is this more AI media hype? We are going to have to understand the real world events and consequences of these decisions and the probability that you will be effected. To measure the real consequences of unregulated Data Privacy we need to find out what the bad actors are doing with that data once they get it. Overwhelmingly we are seeing that these tools are being used for Fraud, Phishing, and Extortion.

If you feel like you have been getting more and more spam calls, there is a good chance you are not imagining it. It is estimated that Americans are assaulted with over 2.5 Billion spam and robocalls every MONTH. That’s almost 200 million unwanted calls every single day. Data from YouMail and Truecaller also show there has been a 15 – 20% increase in these types of calls. Scammers have always been around, but the invention of Large Language Models (LLM) have given them a very powerful tool that increases their success rate.

LLMs provide Cyber criminals with:

• Rapid and accurate creation of dialogue in the target’s native language
• Near real time ingestion of data via Scraper bots for high accuracy and engagement
• Automated Agents designed for massive scale call center operations instead of real humans with voice modulators
• Orchestrate complicated networks of Dark Banks using cryptocurrency using Synthetic Identities
• Real time face swapping during live video streams for high value targets (The Arup Group Heist)
• Customized hacking software created with no developer experience using Vibe coding tools

This is only one, easy to understand, real world use case where people are already feeling the stress of AI creeping into their every day lives. There are numerous others with various degrees of risk and impact. It’s hard to get accurate data down to the level of detail we need to find the source of these scams, but we can take a look at the overall financial impact on consumers. The FTC publishes an annual Data Book and has shown us how rapidly things have gotten out of control. In 2019, the FTC reported only $2.4 Billion in consumer fraud losses. By 2024, they reported that number had grown to $12.5 Billion, a 5x increase in 5 years. And the trend is not stopping, with a whopping 24% increase year-over-year where fraud losses topped $15.86 Billion in 2025.

Even if you wanted to argue that the economy and population growth also increased over time, that adjustment still does not even come close to the exponential growth we are seeing in scammers successfully reaching their goals. Additionally, these are only the consumer reports we know of; it is estimated only about 5% of all financial victims report their crime. This solidifies it, you are more likely than ever to be targeted for a scam, and the scammers are using AI tools to get better at it every day. Is all hope lost?

What Can You Do About It?

If you have gotten this far, congratulations on taking the first step towards defending yourself, Education.

Education

By understanding the techniques bad actors use you have already raised your awareness. Simply remaining calm and using critical thinking instead of having an emotional response makes a huge difference.

• Read or Watch Tech News: People are getting scammed every day and news articles are a good way to stay up to date on the tactics that are tricking others. Try to stick to fact based stories that skip the sensational fear mongering and focus on what is happening and how to recognize it if you become the target.
• Follow Data Privacy Legislation: Staying informed on your rights to privacy and how your State enforces it is essential given there is no broad Federal oversight at this time. If your State has not enacted the proper consumer protections, contact your local representative and speak up for yourself.

Protect Yourself

There are a few things you can do to reduce your chances of becoming a victim:

• Establish a Safe Word: AI voice-cloning and video avatars are great at impersonating voice or appearance, but creating a simple phrase that only people you trust know provides assurance that the person on the other end is authentic.
• Identify Unique Behaviors: AI imposters can often make assumptions based on knowledge they do not have. These assumptions may cause certain words to be used that an individual rarely uses in conversation. A video imposter might stare straight into the screen as opposed to the real person who is always distracted.
• Zero Trust Communication: The concept of Zero Trust was conceived in 2010 and is used by many top Technology companies to secure their massive infrastructure against outside attacks. Using this method you should always assume the person on the other end is a bad actor and not share any sensitive or personal information until you have verified their identity.

Sanitize Your Personal Data

Social Media platforms are a source of what Cybersecurity professionals call Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). OSINT is the “Legal collection and analysis of data from publicly available source used to answer questions or gain insight.” This public data is used by Cyber-criminals, Foreign Governments, and Police Enforcement for various reasons, both good and evil. If you are going to use Social Media platforms and you accept the risk there are some steps you can take to participate responsibly.

• Separate Personal and Business: Posting personal information of any kind on social media platforms is never advised, but we understand it can sometimes be required. If you can, keep separate accounts for business operations and sharing private conversations and photos.
• Obfuscation: Deliberately alter your personal details to confuse the data collectors and the AI that uses it. Sanitize your uploads by removing geolocation metadata and adding a delay to your posts to confuse real time location trackers.

How Can SodaStack Help?

We can help reduce your risk of having a breach by monitoring your Servers for unusual activity and making sure they are upgraded to avoid common exploits easily found by AI Research tools. We use Secure practices to handle your credentials and keep your email and social media posts off your personal smartphone with a well organized social content pipeline.